The claims aren’t colored by propaganda and misinformation

They sure are. A great example would be the videos making the rounds recently about the Israeli drones supposedly making “crying baby noises” to lure people out. This is a classic propaganda technique, the videos are literally just a black screen with some background sound, the Israeli government could kill those people far more easily without such tactics, and anyone who has spent time around drones regularly knows it’s extremely implausible at best.

It’s a blatantly obvious piece of propaganda that was widely accepted because people can’t pause for five seconds to apply a bit of critical thinking to their conclusions.

Just because they’re capable of doing genocide “better” doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it.

It means exactly this. “Genocide” implies a certain intent and this is a very strong argument of the absence of the requisite intent.

Also, quit implying that my comments are right wing or Russian just because they have opinions that don’t align with yours. That’s such a tired trope. I could imply the same of you, but I’m choosing to engage in good faith.

Well maybe you shouldn’t be pushing an agenda that benefits the Russians and far-right at the expense of the Palestinian people?

Honestly, you’re either a badly intentioned troll, lacking in some basic critical thinking skill, or simply willing to see far more Palestinians die for your ideals while you sit back in safety and watch it happen.

The claims of genocide are colored by propaganda and misinformation. Academic researchers are split on the issue, at best. The fact of the matter is that Israel could swiftly end all life in Gaza through overwhelming military force if that was their goal, and this has not happened.

I’d agree that Israel’s actions in Gaza are unethical but there is a stark difference between acting without regard for civilian casualties and outright ethnic cleansing. The evidence doesn’t seem to support the latter.

A good president would divest and sanction Israel

A good president would prioritize what’s best for America, which means preserving the favorable relationship America has with Israel. Meanwhile, a good president would provide humanitarian aid for Palestine and help negotiate for peace.

That’s exactly what Biden is doing and refusing to vote for him harms almost every party involved, including Palestine. Really, the only groups who would benefit are the far right and Russia… makes you wonder where comments like this come from, doesn’t it?

Biden isn’t “committing genocide” and saying he is amounts to simple propaganda.

The conservatives want to take aid away from Ukraine to deliver it to Israel. If Trump wins, far more weapons will be going to Israel than they are now. Repeating propaganda like this is not helpful for the Palestinian people.

Lastly, Israel is an important ally from a strategic perspective. Not only are they our closest ally in the Middle East, but they have a number of important resources like intel semiconductor facilities. Cutting ties with Israel would be bad for America, and the role of the US government is to put America first. It’s more complex than simply supporting one side or the other and Biden is attempting to balance aid for Palestine with preserving our relationship with Israel. That’s exactly what a good president should be doing.

Seriously. Southern CA alone is 4-5x the population of all of Norway, and that region often has 3-4 taco shops per block when it’s allowed by zoning.

Edit: the USA has 75,000 Mexican restaurants. That means that there are only 73 people in Norway for every Mexican restaurant in the United States.

The average restaurant in the USA serves 100 people per day. That means that, on average, US Mexican restaurants serve more people daily than the entire population of Norway.

The fact of the matter is that people will happily pay for content if it is made available in a convenient and affordable way. Hell, many people will voluntarily pay artists for content that is available completely for free. That’s how patreon works, and there are self published authors approaching $1M/year in income due to readers choosing to support the author for their hard work.

People have no issue paying content creators.

Piracy rose to prominence in the 2000s because a few executives were funneling massive amounts of money into their pockets by the sale of CDs and cable services that were simultaneously expensive and inconvenient. The studios attacked pirates directly to little effect because you simply can’t stop the free dissemination of information among the public.

Piracy almost completely died when streaming made the alternatives affordable, user friendly and convenient. In a world where the proliferation of streaming services is making content just as expensive and inconvenient as in the old days of cable, it’s only natural that piracy will once again rise to prominence.

If they want to get paid, they simply need to stop fucking with the customer and offer a service people want to pay for.

Blue Origin has been around longer than SpaceX and still has yet to get anything to orbit, while smaller companies than either have popped up and managed to in the meantime.

You hear this a lot and it’s pretty misleading. Blue didn’t begin working on an orbital rocket in earnest until ~2019 and in the 2015-2020 era the headcount was on the order of hundreds instead of thousands. That headcount was spread across multiple big ticket space infrastructure projects.

In addition, New Glenn has been held back by the unexpectedly difficult qualification process to deliver engines to ULA, who is contractually entitled to the first flight articles. I’m of the opinion that bidding to be the Vulcan engine provider was a mistake, but the point remains that it’s not at all a fair comparison between SpaceX, the various smallsat launch companies, and Blue. The landscape is very different.

I don’t think I’d try to contract them for launching a satellite either if I had one, one would be stuck waiting for development on an unproven launcher when ones with a reliable track record are already available.

To be clear, something like half of the planned Kuiper launches are already contracted to go on New Glenn. The only real competitor on price/kg and turnaround time is SpaceX, whose products are a direct competitor to Kuiper. It’s not a mystery as to why they’d prefer alternate launch providers in that context.

Bezos owning both companies has little to no impact on where the contracts go due to shareholder obligations. The two companies are run as discrete entities. For example, Dave Limp, the new CEO replacing Bob Smith, comes from Amazon and is firewalled from any non-public information about Blue until he is fully transitioned to his new role.

Do you not understand how ads work? It’s about making sure that IBM is the first company that comes to mind when you think about potential suppliers for an upcoming project.

It’s no different than ads for Coca Cola. You know what Coke tastes like. An ad isn’t going to materially influence whether you like it or not. However, it attempts to keep the name present in your mind so the first thing that pops into your head on a hot day is a nice cold Coke.

Ohh, so gay people hide their homosexuality when same sex relationships are shunned by their friends and family? What a shocker.

LGBT isn’t a choice and covering their eyes won’t change their sexual orientation.

But, besides that point, how the fuck is it okay to insulate your kid from other cultures? That’s not healthy at all. Eating ramen wasn’t part of my family’s culture growing up, either, but I don’t go around trying to prevent children from learning about Japanese food.

The onion did a bit about ten years ago on the Palestine-Israel conflict, reporting:

“Israeli and Palestine leaders have shown they see eye to eye in nearly every facet of the proposed solution, including such provisions as: seizing all territory, watching the opposition burn in righteous fire, and building a unified nation on the corpses of their enemy. Yet, they still haven’t come any closer to putting a stop to the conflict”

Kind of sums it up.

They take your license just for running a red light? In many parts of America that would leave you unable to satisfy basic necessities like getting to work and buying groceries. It’s frankly ridiculous.

Guess I’m glad I live in the good ole USA

The difference is that those cities are denser, better laid out for walkability, and have tremendously better public transport.

I mean, that’s a large part of why it’s illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk and every major bicycle safety advocacy group says to take to the road. It’s pretty well understood that riding on the sidewalk is incredibly dangerous because it’s very difficult to see a fast moving bike when it’s off the road.

If it wasn’t a turn on red it would have been someone turning right into a driveway eventually.

The alternative would be to share the actual lane with cars in the highway, with no room for the bike. There was no bike lane.

Yes this is exactly what you should be doing as a cyclist if you want to be safe and seen. If there isn’t a bike lane you take the entire lane like a car. I have ridden many thousands of miles like this. Even when there is a bike lane it’s often the safest option if the bike lane is in poor condition.

The reason I advocate so hard for dedicated infrastructure is because I want to see more people biking and many people have a hard time feeling comfortable riding in the street. I get that. But in this case it’s the fault of the cyclist for failing to follow the rules of the road.

Sorry that happened to you. I have had similar experiences, I have had people literally hit me with their cars because they’re angry I’m taking the lane, bad things thrown at me from moving vehicles.

However, I don’t see experiences like yours as being caused by the right turn law so much as the constant fact that people on cars sharing roads with bikes are assholes.

I will say, as a cyclist the polite thing to do is to position your bike to let turn-on-red people past you whenever possible. I don’t think it justifies this guys behavior and don’t know what this intersection looks like but it’s worth bringing up.

Did you actually read anything I have written?

The point is that simply lowering speed limits as the primary lever to improve quality of life isn’t useful. It does nothing to reallocate that space in a beneficial way.

I’m literally arguing in favor of reducing space for cars for more pedestrian, cycling and transit infrastructure

The bottom line is that if you build to accommodate cars, you will never have walkability. It’s geometrically impossible.

Guess what? The city is already built. I agree with you.

The question is how to move forward and slapping lower speed limits on everything isn’t the solution. You need to actually spend money on revamping the infrastructure so there are meaningful alternatives. Try to read more and jump to conclusions less.

There are many reasons why it is bad for everyone, but I will cite a few specifics.

To start with, in the absence of good alternatives, vast majority of pedestrians and cyclists would also be regular drivers. The only exceptions would be people who are too poor to avoid a car. If the drivers and the walkers are the same people then the people who regularly walk still suffer from slowed traffic because they still take the car for some trips.

Poor mobility for cars also translates to increased cost of living. Most businesses rely upon vehicle transport in some way or another and the increased cost of doing business gets passed onto the consumer.

In addition, the existence of high throughput streets with higher speed limits tends to concentrate traffic into specific predictable areas. When you reduce the throughput of those areas, traffic gets distributed onto more roads. The result is that cyclists and pedestrians are less able to avoid cars with strategic route planning.

I wouldn’t ride my bike nearly as often if cars could go 45 mph on Canadian streets.

To clarify, this isn’t every street in the USA, it’s only major thoroughfares. Most side streets in US cities have a 25-30 mph speed limit. In a world with well designed bike infrastructure we would have dedicated paths separated from traffic so you don’t have to share the road with fast moving cars.

Disagree. I spent all of my 20s living the no car lifestyle and cycling 100-200 miles a week on city streets. I have had countless negative interactions with cars but not a single one had anything to do with right turns on red.

I just don’t see any meaningful safety improvement from it but significant downsides in terms of traffic flow.

I think the focus here really needs to be on supporting alternative forms of transport.

We have a city that’s already filled with gridlock almost 24/7, even at 2am in the evening. The city planning is such that it’s hard to go significant distances without a car without spending hours in transit. If the primary lever for change is to institute slower speed limits and traffic calming measures, it simply makes things miserable for everyone involved.

IMO the root of the issue is we have way too many cars and not enough alternative infrastructure to make going without a car especially practical.

Denverites love to walk and bike when it’s convenient and they feel safe. I firmly believe that dedicated infrastructure would dramatically reduce the number of car trips as well as give structural safety measures walkers and cyclists. This would reduce deaths while making the city a more pleasant and healthy place to be. Thats why it should be the primary focus in terms of change.

Yup and I’d LOVE to see some of those four lane roads get turned into two or three lane roads with protected bike lanes

However, in a city that’s primarily optimized for cars and lacking in other forms of infrastructure, the main impact of traffic calming measures is to make it really hard to get anywhere in an efficient manner. I don’t believe it significantly improves safety, but it will undoubtedly make a lot of people who rely on their cars absolutely miserable.

The root of the problem is that we simply have too many cars on the roads to begin with. However, we can’t reasonably ask people to stop driving until the alternatives are as safe and convenient as a car. The primary focus should be on urban planning that makes walking, biking, or taking light rail an attractive alternative. In the case of walking and cycling, this overwhelmingly means dedicated infrastructure.